Written By Lisa Garza, Cisco Service Provider Marketing, Mobility Solutions

Not many of us would expect to get free Wi-Fi when standing on the top of the mountain at a ski resort. Spark New Zealand (formerly Telecom New Zealand) provides just that to their customers who have come to expect quality of experience everywhere, anytime.

By deploying Cisco Service Provider Wi-Fi, Spark NZ has expanded wireless services to their customers from the Auckland city streets to the top of Coronet Peak, allowing their mobile customers to enjoy access to an additional network as they work and play. The Spark Ventures group works in start-up mode – moving quickly and putting the customer first to offer new services. Their innovation started by putting Wi-Fi in phone boxes on the street, and they proceeded to follow their customers as they grew the network footprint.

Use Existing Radio System and Smartphones, with an Etherstack and Cisco Solution

If you’ve got an analog radio system, upgrading to P25 just got much easier and much less expensive.

Some agencies have received an end-of-life and end-of-support notice from their radio network manufacturer. If you’re in this position, there’s a better option for entering the FirstNet era than upgrading your entire radio infrastructure. The problem with jumping to another proprietary radio network is that it might lock you into another 20-year single-vendor solution.

Now there’s an effective and cost efficient way to modernize your existing network radio network infrastructure—whether or not it’s P25, and even if it’s reached end of life. Here are three steps.

Generally, there are two different classes of beacons: transmit only and backhaul enabled.

Transmit only beacons are exactly as they sound – they simply transmit information to anyone that is capable of hearing (bluetooth enabled smartphones). They do not receive or pass any data or information upstream.

Apple’s iBeacon is the best example of this type of BLE beacon. You can think of them like the navigational beacons used by airplanes when on approach to major airports. The beacon doesn’t even know the plane is there, but the plane is aware of the beacon and knows where the beacon is allowing it to take the correct action. Same is true for smartphones and transmit only beacons like iBeacon – the intelligence is located in the mobile application which must recognize the beacon and take appropriate action.

Backhaul enabled beacons generally include a Wi-Fi chipset for either management or data capabilities. Some backhaul enabled beacons are USB enabled and take advantage of whatever connectivity exists within the PC they are connected. Read More »

Tomorrow’s a special #WirelessWednesday, hats off to the folks working hard at Tech Field Day for kicking off the SEVENTH installment of Wireless Field Day. It’s an exciting time for the industry to give the delegates and the world wide web of Wi-Fi enthusiasts a glimpse behind the scenes of some of the latest technologies, and we are ready to put on a show.

This year, Cisco will host Wireless Field Day 7 delegates at the Cisco Meraki San Francisco office this Friday.

We will be spending 2 hours discussing the forefront of Wireless technology with Cisco thought leaders. Here is a sneak peek of what will be covered.

Latest updates on the Cisco Meraki MR product line.

Deep dive into the Cisco Meraki traffic analytics algorithm; how it works and how it scales for large deployments.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014 was the largest mobile industry exhibition in the world, where over 1800 companies showcased and launched their latest products and services. This event was visited by over 85,000 attendees from over 200 countries around the world, to learn, network, inspire and innovate. Providing them seamless and robust data network was the first priority. GSMA , Fira de Gran Via and Cisco took this challenge to provide them next generation Wi-Fi experience with seamless connectivity and onboarding using Hotspot 2.0 service on the top of baseline free Wi-Fi service.

Hassle and risk are the two key factors involved in connecting free public Wi-Fi. When you are traveling in the different countries, you get off the plane and turn on your cell phone… and within few seconds you get connected to the cellular network. There is no need to search for a suitable network manually (hoping it’s not rigged by a hacker), then enter long password or credit card details to pay for the service. But unfortunately connecting to Wi-Fi is not that simple. Hotspot 2.0 Service addresses these problems by automatic network discovery and selection, seamless network access and secured authentication for the Passpoint certified devices.

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